Long Night Ahead
by Charlie019
Summary: Broken. That's all she was now. Everything she ever knew had been torn away. Her friends, her family, and her home. Having a roof to sleep under only meant that there is nothing to take her mind off the voices and memories haunting her. Oneshot.


_**A.N:**_

_**Had to get it out of my head after playing Season 2 Episode 1. **_

_**Warning, heavy spoilers below.**_

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_Innocence is wasted_

_And I'm so sorry that you never can replace it_

_The darkest road ahead you're gonna have to face it_

_Cause I can't always be there…_

_Miracle of Sound; The Best I Can_

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"_Keep that hair short."_

Those words echoed in her skull every night, a grim reminder of what she's lost.

Things had changed.

Less than twenty months ago, she was carefree. She had her family, she had her home, she had her tree house, and she had her friends. Then she lost them all. The dead took them all away from her, ripped and tore them to shreds. She had to leave that behind.

Then she found Lee, or Lee found her. He helped her, saved her, and gave her a new family, a new home, new friends, and a new life.

They took that away too. Everything around her came apart. Everyone around her had perished, one after another. Including Lee.

Lee the caretaker. The man who found her, looked after her, and made sure she stayed warm and fed as much as he could.

Lee the protector. The man who defended her, fought for her, kept her safe from both the living, and the dead.

Lee the teacher. The man who taught her most of what she knew, how to use a gun, how to deal with walkers, how to survive, how to overcome her fear in certain situations.

Lee the… invincible. He was always there for her no matter what happened. He just seemed so invulnerable, all the time. She saw him kill the walkers with difficulty at times, but he always succeeded. She's seen him came close to death more than once, but he always seem to cheat his way out of its grasp.

Seeing him lying there, looking pale, weary and week just doesn't seem right.

Life, what's left of it, moved on, whether she likes it or not. It doesn't care if she wants more time to grieve. Life goes on, regardless of what had happened, the suffering she's been through during those two days she spent in Savannah.

She clenched her fist around the mattress she's sleeping on, willing herself to get the voices, the memories, out of her head.

"_I'll miss you…"_

She bit her lip. Hard. They come back, every night. Haunting her, punishing her. She tasted blood in her mouth, making her realize she bit too hard. She welcomes the pain, a welcome distraction from the voices and images.

A flash of lightning briefly illuminated the tiny room she was given, the same one where she used to sneak into the house an hour or two ago, followed by the loud boom of thunder.

She pushed herself off the dusty spare mattress provided for her. She wanted to borrow a couple books from Sarah, but she couldn't. The doctor told her to stay away, and she didn't exactly part with her on the best terms. The older girl seemed oblivious to the world around her, how it had all went to hell close to two years ago, ignorant and unaware of the death and suffering happening everywhere. Sarah had the same wide, innocent eyes beneath her glasses, the carefree outlook and optimism that she used to possess.

They were gone, replaced long ago. She's bitter, cynic, jaded and cold, all brought up by the brutality she witness over the past months. Sarah's behavior had rubbed her the wrong way, and it took nearly everything to simply not lash out at the older girl, as if she had been living under a rock for the past one and a half years.

She coldly rejected Sarah's offer of friendship. Much to her own disgust, seeing the crestfallen expression on her face had brought a tiny amount of satisfaction to her.

So was blackmailing the woman who was rude to her.

_What's wrong with me?_

Her hands moved to cover her face, squeezing back tears. Her arm throbbed, followed by a sharp stab of pain, as if punishing her. If Lee was still alive, he would wash her mouth with bleach to cleanse her language and behavior in general. Probably.

She shouldn't stay, people tend to die around her. And yet, she accepted Luke's offer.

Lee would disagree. The motor inn wasn't her fault, and they lost half their numbers from the fallout of losing it. But her stupidity indirectly killed Ben, Kenny and Lee. And she never got what she wanted, other than a glimpse of her undead parents wandering in the streets.

Lee would say its because she's still a kid, its natural to make mistakes. Except he never had the time to say it.

Christa and Omid were nice to her as well, but its not the same. It never felt the same. She was allowed to keep her gun, but they were too protective, way more than Lee.

Then Omid got himself killed, because she couldn't keep an eye on her own gun.

_Lee's gun._

Christa confiscated the gun, and became harsher to her, colder. Like Kenny. Both became obsessed with something. One was obsessed with finding a boat, the other, Wellington. She couldn't exactly dislike the woman, since many of her survival lessons had proven useful in the end, however painful some had been. A couple of them had even saved her own life.

_Christa…_

The last time she saw the woman, she was running away from the bandits after throwing a rock at them. She heard Christa cry out, before being silenced by a gunshot.

With her gone, that meant that she's the only one out of the original group left alive.

Doug, the dorky guy she briefly talked to at the pharmacy about something she's long forgotten.

Mark, always finding time to play with both her and Duck, no matter the situation.

Larry. Always angry, expression locked in a permanent scowl, to the point where she thought the man was born with an angry face like that.

Carley, the reporter who looked after her whenever Lee was busy. Also the first to offer her own rations when she was starving.

Lilly, the scary woman who often yelled at others. Mark joked that it was her way of showing care for others.

Katjaa, who was just like her own mother in many ways.

Duck, her friend. They often pranked one another, played together and went on 'adventures'. His death brought a silence that could never be replaced by anyone.

Chuck, she never knew much about him, other than that he's old and direct. All she knew was that he went missing after protecting her from walkers in the streets of Savannah. Should've taken the time to savor the candy he gave her like ben did instead of chugging it down.

Ben, who often said that she resembled his own sister in many ways and often shared stories of how middle and high school was like.

Kenny, who did the weirdest things to amuse her and Duck. When asked, he often blamed his Floridian heritage for them.

Lee, her guardian, protector, surrogate father. Her biggest regret. She wanted to go back in time, to just hug him, and stay there in his embrace, feel his warmth, hear his comfort, to tell her that everything is all right and that he forgives her.

Omid, whose optimism never fails to bring a smile to her, even after Lee's death. And for that, she ignores the man's occasional swearing, much to Lee's dismay, who gets called out every time he does it.

Christa, whose barter and playful arguments always made their group more lively. Who taught her many survival lessons that Lee had taught and left out, no matter how hard and cruel they are for the sake of survival.

Sam, the dog she always wanted. They were two hungry souls, wandering and starving during these dangerous times. Two broken souls who lost everything and everyone around them. The animal who fell to hunger and turned on her in anger and starvation, forcing her to put down the feral.

She wanted to scream, to rage at how unfair everything is. She wanted to stay angry, bitter to everyone she met. She wanted to yell, for people to stop treating her like an innocent child.

Then she would hear his voice, chiding her for a behavior, shaking his head in disapproval.

She pushed herself up, reaching for the cup of water nearby.

Lee's dead. He's dead. So why was his voice haunting her?

_You killed him. The man who took care of you, kept you safe, warm and fed for three months, and you killed him by running off with some stranger._

_Shut up, please._

She had smiled briefly earlier on in the day, when she met Sam. She believed that she could be close with the animal, and that they could be companions. She even echoed what Lee had taught her to this new found 'friend' of hers, only for it to turn on her over a can of food without warning.

Crying out in anguish, she threw the cup across the room. The newfound peace and security she found among this new group had made her nightmares worse, since she no longer had to be worried about safety. The cup rolled across the floor, spilling precious water as it did.

Lee would've called her out on this, saying she shouldn't waste it.

_Shut. Up._

Finally unable to hold them back, she buried her face into the pillow, letting tears flow. For the first time in months, Clementine cried her soul out, drowning herself in her own pain and sorrow.

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_**Just couldn't see Clementine as the sweet little girl we all know from Season 1 anymore, especially after all the trauma Telltale put her through. Tried my best to do so while playing it, and failed miserably.**_

_***Side note to Telltale: Once again, good job. But damn you for making me stitch her arm you cruel bastards.***_

_**Kudos to LeShyWolf for helping to beta this oneshot.**_

_**Let me know what you think of it.**_


End file.
